Monday, June 02, 2008

Won't You be my Neighbor?

Somehow I've become the 'point person' in the ongoing quest to have Studio B's roof deck shut down. A reporter from the Brooklyn Courier called me today to talk about their permit problems after I went to Community Board 1's monthly meeting on public safety last Thursday. Weird how these things spiral.

For those who have inquired recently (at least, the ones who have asked without making a snide comment in the process) is that the second floor of the place a.k.a. "the roof deck" has not one single permit to be open legally: no fire safety plan, no amended Certificate of Occupancy, no amended Public Assembly (PA) permit, no cabaret license. The roof hasn't been open much recently, but if that is due to crap weather or no permits, I really don't know. The few nights they have been open caused a ridiculous amount of noise to float into the houses on the residential sides of our block.

They recently made motion towards applying for a cabaret license, although their current PA indicates they have a cabaret license. However the Department of Consumer Affairs are the ones responsible for the cabaret permit, not the DOB, who issue the PA. This means they have been operating for over TWO YEARS without a cabaret license, when they constantly promote dance parties, DJs, etc. Why the owners would suddenly care about having one permit specifically, when they have no others for the space, is a mystery.

There will be a public hearing on their application on June 11th at 6:15 at the Swinging 60s Seniors Center (my new best friends, no doubt) at 211 Ainslie St., a recommendation from the board will be made, and then the final vote will be in early July.

I also had the pleasure last week of helping my neighbor Chuck write captions for the Greenpoint Gazette, who were going to run his photos from the Greenpoint Memorial Day Parade. Weigh laid on my way to the store, I sat in his front yard for 20 minutes and pounded out some brilliant stuff like "Greenpointers show their American pride as members of the Armed Forces march down the Avenue on Sunday, May 23rd" Easily my most stirring work.